The campaign to ban police and prosecutors from using condoms as “evidence of prostitution” is ramping up; last week a group of public health and human rights advocates spoke to the New York legislature, and supporters now have their own website. Find out what you can do to help end this public health nightmare; success in New York will reinforce efforts in other states.

“If it had happened here, the woman couldn’t have gone to the police and said, ‘These guys are trying to cheat me out of money.’ Instead, she would have been hurt and cheated, and Mr. Agent Man would have gone home and patted himself on the back for having gotten one over on her,” said Maggie McNeill, a former New Orleans call girl and the founder of The Honest Courtesan.

She also wrote:

But while they acknowledge the potential dangers to national security, sex workers in the United States think the “breach” argument is another form of discrimination against prostitutes. “If the issue is attracting attention or bragging about being in the security detail, then it would be a problem if they brought in any outsider,” said McNeill. “If that’s the case, then what difference does it make if she’s a prostitute or an accountant?”

The next day, Newstrack India drew on the ABC story for its own report, which said: “Maggie McNeill, a former New Orleans call girl and the founder of The Honest Courtesan, and others have said that the policy was ridiculous, and that criminalizing prostitution was not only a human rights violation, but also a safety and labour issue.” Meanwhile, I was contacted by the producer of The O’Reilly Factor to be on Tuesday’s show, but I didn’t want to show my face on national television and O’Reilly understandably wanted someone he could look in the eye; instead they got Sienna Baskin of the Sex Workers Project, whom I am told held her own very well (probably better than I could’ve, because O’Reilly would almost certainly have flustered me).

Matyas Pis was…convicted of controlling prostitution…The [two] women said they asked…Pis to book their air tickets, and he provided them with an apartment…Judge Burgess said the women were not being held against their will, but he could not ignore that “human trafficking is a global problem and we should not be blind to the fact that it is happening right now in Northern Ireland…”

So obviously this judge would convict men for having consensual sex on the grounds that he heard somewhere that 1 in 4 women have been raped.

Dr. Brooke Magnanti referenced this column and two others in a new article on the methodological deficiencies of prohibitionist “studies”. Meanwhile, an otherwise-uninteresting news article led me to this equally-uninteresting 2006 item which nonetheless contained one interesting statistic: 49% of Indian men are now willing to admit they’ve paid for sex, which is much closer to the truth than the laughably low figures many American “researchers” produce via poorly-phrased questions.

[At a UN panel] Somaly Mam…[falsely claimed] that when police raided her Afesip centre in Phnom Penh in 2004, eight of the girls were…murdered…83 women…[were taken to the] centre…after a raid…on the Chai Hour 11 Hotel, where it was alleged that underage girls were providing sexual services…However, the following day, the centre itself was raided by government officials and members of the detained women’s families, and the women released…Somaly Mam [claimed] these officials colluded with the owners of the hotel, but a number of the women released [insisted] to reporters that they…resented being “rescued”. It was also disputed that any of the women were underage…No reports…suggested any of the women…were missing…[and] the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights [expressed] surprise at Mam’s…claim…[Pierre Legros, Mam’s ex-husband and] Afesip’s international director at the time of the raids, also denied that any…girls were murdered…he said that previous claims by his ex that their daughter had…been kidnapped and gang-raped in revenge for her mother’s activism were also untrue…[the] daughter had simply run off with her boyfriend…the lack of evidence of Mam’s claims…seriously [undermines] her credibility. Observers had for some time felt that Mam had become preoccupied with her identity as an international celebrity…

On Tuesday I received a DVD of The Thing from Lord Oberon, then yesterday the UPS man brought me John Stossel’s new book No, They Can’t from Elisabeth Whispers. Thank you both so much for thinking about me!

…I was at this event most of last week, part of a group promoting a vision of sex work, migration and feminism that emphasizes agency, the state of being in action, taking power, making decisions even when presented with few options. We overtly challenged the reductionist, infantilising ideology that has come to dominate mainstream policy and faux journalism (like The New York Times’s) by attending many sessions and commenting…

“We are forced to live with the modern lie that border controls and anti-trafficking policies are for our protection…We have been spied on, arrested, cut off from our families, had our savings confiscated, interrogated, imprisoned and placed into the hands of the men with guns…all in the name of ‘protection against trafficking’”…one woman [said]: “At a restaurant you get a menu and you look at all the options before you pick out your selection …Some restaurants have a huge menu and some only have a few dishes – either way the process is the same. Vegetarians may not understand when you choose a steak, and others may not understand when we choose to do sex work.”

A former Brazilian prostitute plans to sue the United States embassy and five of its personnel for injuries sustained outside a strip club [on December 29th]…Romilda Aparecida Ferreira…[is suing] for injuries, medical expenses, lost income, and psychological trauma after an embassy van ran over her and left her stranded in the club parking lot with a broken collarbone, punctured lung and other injuries…A civil suit would compound a case in which Brazilian prosecutors have already said they are considering criminal charges…Little noticed at the time, the incident in Brasília…gained traction this week…

It was “little noticed” because the American media didn’t give a damn about several apes in uniform mutilating a hooker (NHI and all that). But now that it can be tangentially hooked to a “prostitution scandal” it’s suddenly news.

In order to combat prohibitionist claims that satisfied, well-adjusted sex workers are “not representative”, Greta Christina has invited us to tell our stories in a thread from which prohibitionists and other non-sex workers are specifically excluded. If you’re a present or past sex worker of any kind (it’s not limited to whores) please contribute; the thread is already over 100 responses long!

…in Florida, a judge granted $150,000 bail for George Zimmerman, who is charged with the murder of Trayvon Martin. Last week, a career criminal named Ivan Ramos was arrested after allegedly raping, sodomizing and robbing a young woman…Facing 15 years, an obvious flight risk and a clear threat to the community, Ramos was given $300,000 bail. Meanwhile, Anna Gristina…has been held on $2 million bond since Feb. 22 on a nonviolent charge of promoting prostitution…[which usually results in] probation and carries a maximum sentence of two to seven years…two weeks ago five male hotel clerks were charged…with the same exact crime [and] released on their own recognizance, without posting a dime in bail…What’s more obscene? A woman charged with promoting the world’s oldest profession that attracts governors, U.S. senators, congressmen and Secret Servicemen? Or this flagrant abuse of judicial power that’s turned the Blind Lady of Justice into a streetwalker?

American readers, have you called your congressman about CISPA yet? If not, you’d better hurry:

Up until [Thursday] afternoon, the final vote on CISPA was supposed to be [Friday]. Then, abruptly, it was moved up…and the House voted in favor of its passage…248-168…[after] an absolutely terrible change (…amendment #6)…[in] what the government can do with shared information…Astonishingly, it was described as limiting the government’s power…though it in fact expands it…Previously, CISPA allowed the government to use information for “cybersecurity” or “national security” purposes. Those purposes have not been limited or removed. Instead, three more…have been added: investigation and prosecution of cybersecurity crime, protection of individuals, and protection of children…Basically it says the 4th Amendment does not apply online, at all…[and] the government could do whatever it wants with the data…CISPA is now a completely unsupportable bill that…eliminates …all privacy laws for any situation that involves a computer…

The government’s doubletalk was so masterful it even succeeded in convincing some CISPA opponents that the changes limited its power, but as Leigh Beadon explains in this follow-up to her article above, that’s totally false.

One Year Ago Today

“The Coffee Klatsch” provides samples of the blogs of three other hookers with whom I’m friendly.

29 Responses

”If the issue is attracting attention or bragging about being in the security detail, then it would be a problem if they brought in any outsider,” said McNeill. ”If that’s the case, then what difference does it make if she’s a prostitute or an accountant?”

You’re awesome. That is the point I tried to make this week with a lot of conservative bloggers – who’ve now blown this “scandal” up into a full fledged witch hunt for any agent who’s paid for sex in the last 12 years.

I was assigned to the White House from ’92 to ’95 and I made many of these kinds of trips. I knew a lot of USSS on the PD and the CAT and the Comm Team. I can tell you that I often saw some of those guys “pick up” women in bars and take them back to their hotel and no one said a damn thing about it. I saw agents fly their wives into tripsites and stay with them and all anyone said was “awwww ain’t that cute?”

Ask anyone who’s feigning concern about this and they’ll tell you that they oppose the conduct because the agents have TS security clearances and “pillow talk” with a hooker could compromise the safety of the POTUS.

Right – because we all know that agents don’t “pillow-talk” their wives, or their girlfriends, or their same sex boyfriends. They won’t tell their closest lovers these kinds of things – but get them in bed with a hooker and boy oh boy – do they sing like canaries!

You’re right. They are less likely to sing like a canary to a whore than they are to their spouses or romantic lover. I wonder where these people get their brains from. I guess when God said I’m passing out good brains this hour and bad brains the next hout, they thought He said trains and said I’ll take the next one in an hour. LOL!!!

The new behavior policies apply to Secret Service agents even when they are off duty while traveling, barring them from drinking alcohol within 10 hours of working, according to a memorandum describing the changes obtained by The Associated Press. In some cases under the new rules, chaperones will accompany agents on trips. The embattled Secret Service director, Mark Sullivan, urged agents and other employees to “consider your conduct through the lens of the past several weeks.”

That’s just SOME of the new “rules”. Meanwhile they’re still searching all over Colombia for hookers and pimps who knew these guys were USSS – and they haven’t found any.

Personally, if we really have to have agents who have no cocks – I’d just rather pay to have their wives travel to sites with them occasionally. Not every time – but a few wives on the tripsite provides a pretty good “deterrent” to everyone on the trip to keep in zipped up. Yeah – I’m not really keen on paying for people to fly to tripsites who aren’t really productive in the mission itself – but if we have to have a celibate protection detail then so be it.

The nanny government state proceeds apace and we as a nation, the USA, become more of a laughing stock every day, and my reason for saying this is Secret Service Agents especially if they are men need “CHAPERONES”!!! U.S. Senator from Nevada Harry Reid said to hire only women Secret Service Agents. It would be interesting to see how long Reid would last in one unharmed body if he was only guarded by women Secret Service Agents if serious threats were being made on his life, and I’m not wishing for his death not injury. Most Americans especially women have no idea to one extent or another of how much better fighters men are because of their Hollywood misperceptions and fantasies. I guess you could take the top professional female fighter in the world, and at least the top 200 ranked professional men fighters could beat her in a fight even if she could beat the daylights out of over 95% of the men in this world. I don’t say any of these things to insult women or be sexist, but people, wake up (Have a realistic and true vision of the world.) and smell the coffee! Maybe the women SS will chaperone the men SS. Will the SS men be forced to drink milk form the women SS(This question is sarcastic!) after she privately milks those udders into baby bottles?

I believe a man is more likely to say or do something stupid when he is trying to GAME or seduce an amatuer woman for the first time into sex than he is to do so the first time with a whore. If a man is in a long term relationship, for example marriage, he is more likely to tell his long term partner, for example wife, than he is to a whore he has been visiting longer than he has known his wife. Romantic partners, amatuers, are more of a risk than whores on average. Shakespeare once said that hell hath no fury of a woman scorned. There is great truth in this. I read within the past year that 60-70% of American divorces, are initiated by women. I also read that 70-80% of boyfriend-girlfiernd romantic relationships are ended by the female over 20 years ago, and that most of the males never saw it coming. Anecdotally, I agree with this and more. Personally I’ve seen women on average inflict greater psychological and verbal harm against men, and men inflict greater physical harm against women. What do you think a woman who is no longer in love with you,the man, will do when she is no longer in love with you especially when she thinks it is your fault? Think of former U.S. Senator and Democratic party Presidential candidate John Edwards and his mistress right now, and ask yourself what do you think she will do to you when she thinks she has been decieved iand/or she thinks it’s your fault the relationship failed for whatever reason if you need a famous example?

I’m waiting for Maggie McNeill to say that the only ones who keep what you the john say in confidence or silent than whores in bed are Catholic priests dealing with penitent sinners in the confessional. LMAO!!!

Here are truths to ponder. Why do the South Asian Indians look more advanced than Americans in this regard: Why are South Asian Indians more honest about their sexual proclivities particularly in regard to prostitution than Americans?When will Americans especially the men admit that men visit prostitutes in great percentages when they are able to do so? When will Americans especially men not shame men who visit prostitutes? When will Americans be they men or women admit that visiting prostitutes is less harmful to men, amatuer women and whores than men trying to seduce amatuer women for sport sex even if the amatuer women know what these men are doing and especially if these amatuer women are being decieved? When will Americans realize that a whore acting professionally and a john acting professionally is some of the most honest sex around?

This is off-topic, but I wanted to get your view on something. You’ve mentioned that many escorts have a NBA policy and I get the impression that you think they should have to option to do it if they like. I am guessing your view is that the escorts are private businesses so it’s up to them to make their own policies without gov’t interference (well that is if escort were actually legal).

Does this mean you don’t believe it should be illegal for private entities (bars, private schools, gyms, etc) to deny entry to blacks (or any other group) if they so desire? What about denying service to particular individuals at the owner’s discretion?

This is a debate I’m having in my mind. I started thinking whether ladies nights at clubs and bars should be illegal and it led me down this path. So I figured I’d ask Maggie, since she seems to have thought about these kinds of issues a lot and always strikes me as logical and consistent 🙂

There is a vast difference between letting someone in one’s door and letting him in one’s vagina. That having been said, I am against any government regulation of how individual businesspeople conduct their individual business. In other words, if a “Christian masseuse” only wants to deal with Christians, it’s her right to do so; there are plenty of other masseuses and she is the one giving up good money, so her actions hurt only her.

Once one moves beyond a sole proprietorship, it’s reasonable to have SOME extremely limited laws about discrimination, though the US government goes much too far. This is especially disgusting because it was the government which created the discrimination issue in the first place; local, state and federal governments alike enacted laws that discriminated against minorities (in the US, chiefly blacks, Amerinds and Asians) at a time when many businesses were already catering to mixed clientele and some people were already entering interracial social and even sexual relationships. Think about it logically for a minute; with rare exception, laws aren’t made for theoretical concepts involving no actual people; they are made to prohibit behaviors the rulers dislike. In other words, segregation and miscegenation laws were passed because people were already mixing with increasing frequency, and the “authorities” didn’t like it. When governments started to change their collective minds in the 1950s (in large part because the Nazis had given racism a really bad reputation), they set themselves up as “champions” against systems they had enabled and created.

What this boils down to is this: governments didn’t invent racism; it grows from the natural human tendency toward tribalism. But the US and other governments institutionalized and excused racism for centuries, continuing it past the point it would have attenuated on its own. So it’s pretty insulting and paternalistic for governments to then turn around and make laws against behavior THEY perpetuated and sanitized, in the odious pretense that people need their “betters” to tell them right from wrong. In another century or two people will be free to discriminate as they please, but those who do it too obviously or extensively will probably find themselves the butt of ridicule. Social pressure is and always has been a better tool of shaping human behavior than criminalization could ever be, and it’s far more moral.

Bill O’Reilly whom I more often agree with than disagree with was being a pinhead instead of a patriot when he takes his prohibition against prostitution. It would be very difficult if not impossible to support just yourself on waiting tables or driving a taxi without any debt or children to support. Even if you were able to support yourself, you are probably making a meager living waiting tables and taxi driving. I reckon it is easier to pay off debt, save money, support yourself and support children of the earnings of prostitution than it is off the earnings of table waiting and taxi driving.

My reply to that would have been, “Then why don’t we ban violent sports like football and boxing? They exploit young men for their bodies, and those young men are usually permanently harmed by their participation. After all, football players, coaches and other people who are employed by the sports industry could just get jobs waiting tables or driving cabs, and the people who enjoy seeing violent sports must be ‘sick’ so we should criminalize them as well.”

Well, having grown up in a rugby culture, I can tell you that the subculture surrounding it is definitely sick. My boys play soccer. If they want to play rugby when they are 18 they can make up their own minds. At least the MMA and boxing of today is largely silly grappling stuff. I think back to being a boy and watching Ali, Foreman, Frazer et al. smashing each other into broken and bloody pulps and I shudder that a kid would even be allowed to be exposed that that stuff..

Dangerous analogy Maggie, some of have had friends crippled in the boxing ring or rugby field, and wouldn’t be leading the protest if it were all banned. I really don’t care about the people watching it and whether they are sick or paragons of mental hygeine, but anyone who tried to use money to induce my sons into getting their faces smased into bloody bits would very quickly wish that they hadn’t.

It’s a wholly appropriate analogy. Both are largely dominated by one sex, both involve use of natural skills, both have an element of danger, both provide a pleasant entertainment for the client, both pay better than other jobs, both tend to strongly favor younger people, and both are chosen by the participants as the best options available despite what some others might prefer. The main difference: sports stars are lionized while whores are stigmatized. There’s some REAL sexism for you.

Actually, I was often surprised about some of the things clients told me when I was an escort. Often, during the session, after the first go, when they were relaxing, they’d talk about some very surprising things.

I suspect it was because I was a whore. You know, according to society the “lowest of the low”, How I could I ever judge them? Or maybe they thought me too stupid to understand some of what they were telling me, especially about their issues and frustrations in business.

And I have never talked. And won’t. It’s not anyone’s business.

Well, I went and posted my story as a comment in Greta Christina’s blog. Basically the same material as I cover in my comics.

I suspect that women who run sex services draw harsher punishments and bail because men are surprised, and angry that women can and do do so.

I suspect it was because I was a whore. You know, according to society the “lowest of the low”, How I could I ever judge them?

I don’t think that’s true.

Aren’t there things in a woman’s mind that she would never tell to her husband or boyfriend? I know that, in my case – there are things I wouldn’t tell to my wife, and probably one of the most therapeutic things about being with a hooker is talking about those things after the sex. It’s not because she’s the “lowest of the low” – it’s because, first – she’s probably an expert on men so she can give good advice. Second – she’s a complete stranger (mostly) and it’s easier to talk to strangers and tell them things you never would to your lover – especially since you know she won’t go off and tell anyone.

When I was really young and clueless – I had a girl “dump” me because she said I didn’t know how to “make love” – only “f***”! I was like … “shit”.

So I hired a hooker a few weeks later and we discussed this afterward. I told her that, I loved women so much and ached for them that I pretty much lost control during sex – nothing rough or violent – but very animalistic and dominant. In fact – a lot of the girls I had dated seemed to like this because there was no pressure on them to do anything at all and a lot of girls get off on seeing the guy lose himself in bliss.

Anyway – I saw her a few times and she taught me how to control that and to “read” which women wanted to play the submissive role and which ones wanted a more “mutual” style of intercourse.

Funny thing- When I worked for an adult website, the manager was a women, but two of the owners (It was a company) were gay men. They would occasionally come in, and walk through. There would be nude, or barely dressed women doing all sorts of shows, and these guys would be paying attention to the cameras, computers, and lighting. Rather cool, really. Perhaps women and gay men do run these things better.

It’s not just gay men. I used to belong to a photography club in London that specialised in nude work, and I can tell you that after a while, you don’t really notice that the girls are naked.

The models didn’t act naked either. During club shoots (as opposed to private sessions) when we would break for lunch, the girls didn’t bother to get dressed and we’d all sit and chat and eat perfectly normally.

And during a private shoot, I was always too busy keeping the model happy and in the mood, working the cameras, props, and lighting, and picking bits of lint off of the girl or background to notice her nudity. From what I saw, the other photographers were that way too.

Re: Handy Figures. The New Statesman — a left leaning British weekly — carries a review this week of “The Sex Myth” by Dr Brooke Magnanti. ( http://bit.ly/IfFPI1 ). On the magazine cover it states: “Belle de Jour How the sex blogger got her numbers wrong”. The review, by Helen Lewis, compares Dr Magnanti’s treatment of two studies of sex workers, and is critical of her for preferring the study from Keele University because that research used “sex workers who advertise their services via websites” and was therefore not representative of all sex workers.

Helen Lewis also notes: “(Incidentally, Magnanti refuses to talk to me, citing an online argument that I can neither find nor remember.)”

The blog post referred to by Maggie looks like a defence of her position by Dr Magnanti, a response to Helen Lewis’s review.

Incidentally, publication of “The Sex Myth” has been delayed for a few weeks, though I got my copy on the date originally advertised.

Roughly 60-70% of prostitutes now advertise on the internet; fewer than 10% are now streetwalkers. So it’s insulting to every single reader’s intelligence for Lewis to pretend that streetwalker studies are somehow “more representative” than online escort ones.

So obviously this judge would convict men for having consensual sex on the grounds that he heard somewhere that 1 in 4 women have been raped.

I’m reminded of the Patrick Griffin case, where a physician was convicted (initially) of molesting a patient. The judge threw out most of the exculpatory evidence in the first trial because she was a afraid it would discourage women from coming forward.

Exactly. Or “feminists” who hide and deny facts contradicting “social construction of gender” because they’re afraid tyrants will use those facts as an excuse to discriminate against women. Or talk-show hosts who oppose harm reduction efforts because they want to “send a message” that activities opposed by “authorities” are “bad”.

Perhaps we should round up all those who distort truth and/or harm others to “send a message” and confine them on an island without outside contact in order to “send a message” that we won’t tolerate the rights of individuals being subordinated to agendas.

I watched the video of O’Reilly & Sienna and although Sienna more or less held her own again O’Reilly’s remarks one thing I think she could of done was to point out that many sex-workers actually choose this work over other jobs which they either already had or could of done since they saw sex work as a better option. Sienna mostly states that women do it because of financial desperation or very few other options. This show being shown nationally would have been a good spot to point out some of the benefits of sex work- i.e., pay, working hours, flexability.

It’s no use renaming this thing. It’s like telling us that we can stop thinking about Freddy Kreuger, because now Jason Voorhees in here. That… doesn’t make me feel any better. Please, let SOPA, CISPA, or whatever you’re calling it this month die, die, die. No more sequels.

Dear Sailor B, I love your comment! I love how you NEVER GIVE UP on doing what you can to change things. You don’t want any part of that very popular (gag) “gloom and doom” mentality of: well, you can’t fight city hall. You can’t change anything. They’re all out to get us at all times. No one who has any power is any good. Cops are ###***. Politicians are ###***. Prosecutors are ###***. Petitions never work. Don’t even bother trying. There’s no such thing as sisterhood. Etc., etc. I could go on with more examples but have already made my point (wink…I don’t feel up to looking for the winking head code). This is 1 of the many reasons I love you: you never give up and your involvement in at least trying to change things for the better is lasting which means your commitment to it is real.

[…] more widely, with a number of prominent "trafficking" hysteria profiteers such as Nicholas Kristof, Somaly Mam and The Grey Man caught in outrageous lies. All things being equal I'd say we were on track for a […]

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Boring but necessary legal stuff

All original content on this website (i.e. all of my columns, pages and anything else which I write myself) is protected under international copyright law as of the time it is posted; though you may link to it as you please or quote passages (as long as you attribute the quote to me), please do not reproduce whole columns without my express written permission. In other words, you have to say "pretty please with sugar on top" first, and then wait for me to say "okey-dokey".